Prologue

(then)

A man walked into an apartment late one night, the dim lights illuminating a gold band around his finger. His eyes were silver, his hair was brown, and his face was soft. There was not much to say about this man, other then that he was with a women who was very, very drunk.

"Darry!" the women squealed, slipping from her heels and falling into his arms. He caught her, reluctantly, regularly glancing over his shoulder as though he were afraid someone would find him-find him with her.

He looked down at her, looked down at her face that didn't seem to matter, saw only white-hot guilt that clung to his throat like a fist. Her hair was blond, feathered, wispy like cigarette smoke. Her lips were smeared pink from the remnants of bright red lipstick, and her cheeks were flushed.

"Close the door," she said, her voice throaty yet strangely manic.

The man-Darry, Darrel Curtis (Sr now, he reminded himself, thinking of a shrieking baby with fat pink cheeks and chubby little fingers)-obliged, a faint smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

(later)

A phone rang in Tulsa, Oklohoma, and Darrel Curtis Sr. answered it.

"Hello," he said pleasantly.

"Darrel?" a women's voice answered, her voice tight and restrained, almost a hiss.

Darrel recognised the voice, and a faint blush sprang to his cheeks despite himself. "I asked you not to call here, Nancy..."

"I know," she said, as though in tears. "I know-Jesus, God, I know."

Darrel looked over his shoulder (not for the first time) and sat down in the chair beside the phone, running a hand through his rich brown hair. His voice dropped to a whisper as the sound of a one year old squealing and a women laughing reached his ears through the walls. "It's over," he said quickly. "I told you. I told you it's over. I have a family, Nancy. I can't keep-"

"I'm pregnant," she sobbed, so loudly Darrel had to bring the phone away from his ear. His heart thudded against his chest rather loudly, and he became all the more paranoid of the voices in the opposite room.

He covered the receiver and put his mouth to the speaker, "Calm down-calm down. What do you mean your pregnant?"

The women's voice was pathetic at best, like a whining puppy on the street. "I can't take care of it, Darry. My parents're dead, I don't got any family, no money-I can't-"

"Get rid of it," he said, his panic welling up in his throat like bile and spitting itself from his mouth in words. "Get rid of it now."

She sounded aghast, horrified even. "I can't just get rid of it."

"Darrel?" another women's voice, soft and warm and still bright with laughter. "Darry? Who is it?"

The women on the phone began to speak again, "Dar-"

A women, pretty and with bright eyes, poked her head through the door of the kitchen.

Darrel slammed the phone onto the receiver with a loud clacking noise, getting to his feet and smiling at his wife. "Nobody, just some telemarketer."

A/N I'm going to post this, but I'm not sure whether or not I'll finish it. No promises. I just want to add my addition to the Sister Sue genre.